The age of parana flood volcanism, rifting of gondwanaland, and the jurassic-cretaceous boundary

The Paraná-Etendeka flood volcanic event produced approximately 1.5 x 10(6) cubic kilometers of volcanic rocks, ranging from basalts to rhyolites, before the separation of South America and Africa during the Cretaceous period. New (40)Ar/(39)Ar data combined with earlier paleomagnetic results indicate that Paraná flood volcanism in southern Brazil began at 133 +/- 1 million years ago and lasted less than 1 million years. The implied mean eruption rate on the order of 1.5 cubic kilometers per year is consistent with a mantle plume origin for the event and is comparable to eruption rates determined for other well-documented continental flood volcanic events. Paraná flood volcanism occurred before the initiation of sea floor spreading in the South Atlantic and was probably precipitated by uplift and weakening of the lithosphere by the Tristan da Cunha plume. The Parana event postdates most current estimates for the age of the faunal mass extinction associated with the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary.     

The Source and Fate of Massive Carbon Input During the Latest Paleocene Thermal Maximum

Lithologic, faunal, seismic, and isotopic evidence from the Blake Nose (subtropical western North Atlantic) links a massive release of biogenic methane approximately 55.5 million years ago to a warming of deep-ocean and high-latitude surface waters, a large perturbation in the combined ocean-atmosphere carbon cycle (the largest of the past 90 million years), a mass extinction event in benthic faunas, and a radiation of mammalian orders. The deposition of a mud clast interval and seismic evidence for slope disturbance are associated with intermediate water warming, massive carbon input to the global exogenic carbon cycle, pelagic carbonate dissolution, a decrease in dissolved oxygen, and a benthic foraminiferal extinction event. These events provide evidence to confirm the gas hydrate dissociation hypothesis and identify the Blake Nose as a site of methane release.     

Fullerenes in the cretaceous-tertiary boundary layer

High-pressure liquid chromatography with ultraviolet-visible spectral analysis of toluene extracts of samples from two Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary sites in New Zealand has revealed the presence of C(60) at concentrations of 0.1 to 0.2 parts per million of the associated soot. This technique verified also that fullerenes are produced in similar amounts in the soots of common flames under ambient atmospheric conditions. Therefore, the C(60) in the K-T boundary layer may have originated in the extensive wildfires that were associated with the cataclysmic impact event that terminated the Mezozoic era about 65 million years ago.     

Application of carbon isotope stratigraphy to late miocene shallow marine sediments, new zealand

A distinct (0.5 per mil) carbon-13/carbon-12 isotopic shift in the light direction has been identified in a shallow marine sedimentary sequence of Late Miocene age at Blind River, New Zealand, and correlated with a similar shift in Late Miocene Deep Sea Drilling Project sequences throughout the Indo-Pacific. A dated piston core provides an age for the shift of 6.2 +/- 0.1 million years. Correlations based on the carbon isotopic change require a revision of the previously established magnetostratigraphy at Blind River. The carbon shift at Blind River occurs between 6.2 and 6.3 +/- 0.1 million years before present. A new chronology provides an age for the evolutionary first appearance datum of Globorotalia conomiozea at 6.1 +/- 0.1 million years, the beginning of a distinct latest Miocene cooling event associated with the Kapitean stage at 6.2 +/- 0.1 million years, and the beginning of a distinct shallowing of water depths at 6.1 +/- 0.1 million years. The Miocene-Pliocene boundary as recognized in New Zealand is now dated at 5.3 +/- 0.1 million years. Extension of carbon isotope stratigraphy to other shallow Late Miocene sequences should provide an important datum for international correlation of Late Miocene shallow and deep marine sequences.     

A possible tektite strewn field in the Argentinian Pampa

Impact glass associated with 11 elongate depressions in the Pampean Plain of Argentina, north of the city of Rio Cuarto, was suggested to be proximal ejecta related to a highly oblique impact event. We have identified about 400 additional elongate features in the area that indicate an aeolian, rather than an impact, origin. We have also dated fragments of glass found at the Rio Cuarto depressions; the age is similar to that of glass recovered 800 kilometers to the southeast. This material may be tektite glass from an impact event around 0.48 million years ago, representing a new tektite strewn field.     

Paleoceanographic events and deep-sea ostracodes

Eight recognized or theorized paleoceanographic events during the past 70 million years were tested against changes in the global deep-sea benthic ostracode fauna. Two events, the sudden Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary event at 66 million years ago and the more gradual 40-million-year event (formation of the psychrosphere), show up most dramatically. Before the 40-million-year event, ostracodes freely radiated into the deeper water regions but were provincial. The development of thermal stratification isolated these deep-water taxa, mostly the survivors of the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary event, which adapted to a new, free-flowing but more frigid ecosystem and spread rapidly throughout the world.     

Geomagnetic polarity epochs: a new polarity event and the age of the brunhes-matuyama boundary

Recent paleomagnetic-radiometric data from six rhyolite domes in the Valles Caldera, New Mexico, indicate that the last change in polarity of the earth's magnetic field from reversed to normal (the Brunhes-Matuyama boundary) occurred at about 0.7 million years ago. A previously undiscovered geomagnetic polarity event, herein named the "Jaramillo normal event," occurred about 0.9 million years ago.     

Impact event at the Permian-Triassic boundary: evidence from extraterrestrial noble gases in fullerenes

The Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB) event, which occurred about 251.4 million years ago, is marked by the most severe mass extinction in the geologic record. Recent studies of some PTB sites indicate that the extinctions occurred very abruptly, consistent with a catastrophic, possibly extraterrestrial, cause. Fullerenes (C60 to C200) from sediments at the PTB contain trapped helium and argon with isotope ratios similar to the planetary component of carbonaceous chondrites. These data imply that an impact event (asteroidal or cometary) accompanied the extinction, as was the case for the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event about 65 million years ago.     

Double flood basalts and plume head separation at the 660-kilometer discontinuity

Several of the world's flood basalt provinces display two distinct times of major eruptions separated by between 20 million and 90 million years. These double flood basalts may occur because a starting mantle plume head can separate from its trailing conduit upon passing the interface between the upper mantle and the lower mantle. This detached plume head eventually triggers the first flood basalt event. The remaining conduit forms a new plume head, which causes the second eruptive event. The second plume head is predicted to arrive at the lithosphere at least 10 million years after the first plume head, in general agreement with observations regarding double flood basalts.     

Anorthosite belts, continental drift, and the anorthosite event

Most anorthosites lie in two principal belts when plotted on a predrift continental reconstruction. Anorthosite ages in the belts cluster around 1300 +/- 200 million years and range from 1100 to 1700 million years. This suggests that anorthosites are the product of a unique cataclysmic event or a thermal event that was normal only during the earth's early history.     

Covariance Patterns of Foraminiferal dgr18O: An Evaluation of Pliocene Ice Volume Changes Near 3.2 Million Years Ago

Oxygen isotope data for a Pliocene interval from 3.6 to 2.8 million years ago show a mean increase (0.5 per mil) of benthic delta(18)O at about 3.2 million years ago, whereas planktic delta(18)O does not increase. This lack of covariance indicates that the event at 3.2 million years did not result in a permanent increase in the ice budget of either the Northern or the Southern Hemisphere.     

Collective behavior in an early Cambrian arthropod

Examples that indicate collective behavior in the fossil record are rare. A group association of specimens that belong to a previously unknown arthropod from the Chengjiang Lagerst?tte, China, provides evidence that such behavior was present in the early Cambrian (about 525 million years ago), coincident with the earliest extensive diversification of the Metazoa, the so-called Cambrian explosion event. The chainlike form of these specimens is unique for any arthropod, fossil or living, and most likely represents behavior associated with migration.     

U-Pb ages from the neoproterozoic Doushantuo Formation, China

U-Pb zircon dates from volcanic ash beds within the Doushantuo Formation (China) indicate that its deposition occurred between 635 and 551 million years ago. The base records termination of the global-scale Marinoan glaciation and is coeval with similar dated rocks from Namibia, indicating synchronous deglaciation. Carbon isotopic and sequence-stratigraphic data imply that the spectacular animal fossils of the Doushantuo Formation are for the most part younger than 580 million years old. The uppermost Doushantuo Formation contains a pronounced negative carbonate carbon isotopic excursion, which we interpret as a global event at circa 551 million years ago.     

Paleomagnetic chronology of pliocene-early pleistocene climates and the plio-pleistocene boundary in new zealand

The paleomagnetic chronology established for a Pliocene-Early Pleistocene sequence of marine sediments in New Zealand reveals that marked climatic coolings based on Foraminifera and oxygen isotope ratios in the late Cenozoic preceded the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary, which is taken to be at the base of the Gilsá geomagnetic polarity event (1.79 million years ago). Major temperature fluctuations occur from the upper Gauss (Middle Pliocene) to middle Matuyama (Early Pleistocene). The first major Pliocene cooling spans the Gauss-Matuyama boundary (2.43 million years ago). A uniform and rapid (40 centimeters per 1000 years) rate of deposition is shown for the moderately shallow marine environment.     

Alaskan Upper Miocene Marine Glacial Deposits and the Turborotalia pachyderma Datum Plane

ln southeastern Alaska the first marine evidence of widespread glaciation occurs in Miocene sections near the base of the Yakataga Formation. An associated temperature decrease of about 10 degrees C is indicated by the influx of an upper Miocene cold-water planktontic foraminifer, Turborotalia pachyderma, an event that occurred about 13 million years ago.     

Synchrony and causal relations between permian-triassic boundary crises and siberian flood volcanism

The Permian-Triassic boundary records the most severe mass extinctions in Earth's history. Siberian flood volcanism, the most profuse known such subaerial event, produced 2 million to 3 million cubic kilometers of volcanic ejecta in approximately 1 million years or less. Analysis of (40)Ar/(39)Ar data from two tuffs in southern China yielded a date of 250.0 +/- 0.2 million years ago for the Permian-Triassic boundary, which is comparable to the inception of main stage Siberian flood volcanism at 250.0 +/- 0.3 million years ago. Volcanogenic sulfate aerosols and the dynamic effects of the Siberian plume likely contributed to environmental extrema that led to the mass extinctions.     

A short duration of the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary event: evidence from extraterrestrial helium-3

Analyses of marine carbonates through the interval 63.9 to 65.4 million years ago indicate a near-constant flux of extraterrestrial helium-3, a tracer of the accretion rate of interplanetary dust to Earth. This observation indicates that the bolide associated with the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction event was not accompanied by enhanced solar system dustiness and so could not have been a member of a comet shower. The use of helium-3 as a constant-flux proxy of sedimentation rate implies deposition of the K-T boundary clay in (10 +/- 2) x 10(3) years, precluding the possibility of a long hiatus at the boundary and requiring extremely rapid faunal turnover.     

Calibrating the end-Permian mass extinction

The end-Permian mass extinction was the most severe biodiversity crisis in Earth history. To better constrain the timing, and ultimately the causes of this event, we collected a suite of geochronologic, isotopic, and biostratigraphic data on several well-preserved sedimentary sections in South China. High-precision U-Pb dating reveals that the extinction peak occurred just before 252.28 ± 0.08 million years ago, after a decline of 2 per mil (‰) in δ(13)C over 90,000 years, and coincided with a δ(13)C excursion of -5‰ that is estimated to have lasted ≤20,000 years. The extinction interval was less than 200,000 years and synchronous in marine and terrestrial realms; associated charcoal-rich and soot-bearing layers indicate widespread wildfires on land. A massive release of thermogenic carbon dioxide and/or methane may have caused the catastrophic extinction.     

Permo-Triassic Boundary Superanoxia and Stratified Superocean: Records from Lost Deep Sea

Pelagic cherts of Japan and British Columbia, Canada, recorded a long-term and worldwide deep-sea anoxic (oxygen-depleted) event across the Permo-Triassic (or Paleozoic and Mesozoic) boundary (251 ± 2 million years ago). The symmetry in lithostratigraphy and redox condition of the boundary sections suggest that the superocean Panthalassa became totally stratified for nearly 20 million years across the boundary. The timing of onset, climax, and termination of the oceanic stratification correspond to global biotic events including the end-Guadalupian decline, the end-Permian extinction, and mid-Triassic recovery.     

Multiple microtektite horizons in upper eocene marine sediments: no evidence for mass extinctions

Microtektites have been recovered from three horizons in eight middle Eocene to middle Oligocene marine sediment sequences. Five of these occurrences are coeval and of latest Eocene age (37.5 to 38.0 million years ago); three are coeval and of early late Eocene age (38.5 to 39.5 million years ago); and three are of middle Oligocene age (31 to 32 million years ago). In addition, rare probable microtektites have been found in sediments with ages of about 36.0 to 36.5 million years. The microtektite horizon at 37.5 to 38.0 million years can be correlated with the North American tektite-strewn field, which has a fission track age (minimum) of 34 to 35 million years and a paleomagnetic age of 37.5 to 38.0 million years. There is no evidence for mass faunal extinctions at any of the microtektite horizons. Many of the distinct faunal changes that occurred in the middle Eocene to middle Oligocene can be related to the formation of the Antarctic ice sheet and the associated cooling phenomena and intensification of bottom currents that led to large-scale dissolution of calcium carbonate and erosion, which created areally extensive hiatuses in the deep-sea sediment records. The occurrence of microtektite horizons of several ages and the lack of evidence for faunal extinctions suggest that the effects of extraterrestrial bolide impacts may be unimportant in the biologic realm during middle Eocene to middle Oligocene time.